The Post-Millennial Stand-Up Comedy in India (2000–2024): A Study in Evolving Content and Form Across the Media Platforms

Abstract

Airing of comedy shows on television in the first decade of the post-millennial era, when the medium was still functioning in its full glory, familiarized almost all sections of Indian society with the concept of stand-up comedy. However, television’s inability to speak on taboo subjects, be in line with the dominant ideology and be conscious of using appropriate words that are neither too violent nor insensitive narrowed the domains of television stand-up comedy. The second decade of the post-millennial stand-up comedy in India chose social media platforms for the first-ever performance of their jokes. While discussing this digital shift the article solely engages with performing live on social media platforms such as Zoom, YouTube, etc., that can simultaneously engage and seek immediate responses from a larger virtual community. In doing so, the article delves into the ambivalence of real and virtual in deciding the impact of virtually performed live stand-up comedy to argue that, though unable to compete with the real, the medium has effectively discovered novel possibilities for the genre.